:: AudioRave ::

He’s gone from Soundgarden to Audioslave, and now to himself, with a touch of Timbaland. You have to give them points for doing a pretty good job of fusing their genres, hip hop and alternative rock. I like the end result. A nice selection of beats, laid out with the guitar riffs and his husky voice.

I’m not sure if I’m being slow on the uptake, but I noticed an increasing trend in hip-hop type artists heading into electro/house beats. Or vice versa. It’s an interesting combination, which did catch me by surprise at first. Check out Benny Benassi ft. Farenheit’s "Free Your Mind". Beyonce also has a similar track on her new album, if I remember right. Here comes yet another genre mashup!

Funky house music. They’re a mix of electro, progressive and dance. A fresh mishmash. They have their own unique sound; the heavy bass line and the crazy effects. It’s like hearing Benassi. You know it’s him. When you hear the Crookers, you know it’s them. They’ve remixed a number of mainstream tracks too. Check ‘em out on MySpace and anywhere else on the net. Dancefloor killah! DJ duo, woot!

Great voice, catchy tunes, all blended to perfect smoothness. Alternative/pop rock. He’s got two albums ‘Beneath These Fireworks’ and ‘Some Mad Hope’. Both are equally awesome!

She had me captivated just by the first few words in most of her songs. Her lyrics are lively and energetic. Her music has a lot of acoustic  sections (guitar, piano etc). I’d call it adult contemporary/pop/pop rock. Something along those lines. Beautiful stuff! Be moved.

The diva has genre hopped again, and done a great job again! After her last disco/dance heavy record, she’s gone pop/RnB-heavy this time. But don’t get me wrong here, the rhythms flow and the tunes are catchy. "4 Minutes", "Miles Away", "Beat Goes On" and "Incredible" are my top picks. Justin Timberlake, Timbaland and Kanye West are also featured on this record; like Madonna herself ain’t enough.

Go grab some Hard Candy. 

Wicked beats. Lots of spunk. Different rhythms, lots of variation, but each one funky in it’s own. I’m talking about The Crookers. A brilliant blend of music. They’ve got loads of originals as well as remixes. Techno/electro house at it’s best. My kinda flavour.

And if you like that, you will probably like Riva Starr too. Powerful funky stuff. 

They’ve gone beyond monotonous beats. Their tracks are overflowing with energy. Try turning it up and not dancing to it! Catch them on Myspace. 

Check out the smooth emo rock sounds of Daes Vail! Could be compared to the sounds of Something Corporate, with  the emo-boy voice and the piano amidst the guitars and drums. They’ve got a female in there too, and I’m sure I heard a violin somewhere. They range from soft numbers to upbeat guitary tracks. The album is called "All The Houses Look The Same". It’s not a new sound they’re playing with, but they’re doing a good job comin’ out with that familiar emo-pop-rock sound.

Duran Duran’s latest "Red Carpet Massacre" is a big jump from their usual sound. So if you were a fan of their old music, you probably won’t dig this. I’m up for the new sound! They’ve thrown in more beat to their music, heading towards disco indie rock I’d say. And they’ve got tracks with the likes of Timbaland and Justin Timberlake! Who would’ve imagined. All in all, I think they’ve done a good job with the experimentation, or should I say fusion? Of their old sound with something new and heavy. Pretty groovy.

Hed Kandi is a UK-based record label and a music brand, established 1999, specialising in house music. Founded by DJ and A&R man, Mark Doyle, Hed Kandi’s catalogue includes both artist albums and various genres of club compilations. Ministry of Sound bought them over, and now they even have a chain of self-titled clubs too. (I like their compilations over similar MoS compilations, on average).

Smooth cuts. ‘Soft’ techno to groovy house! Hed Kandi compilations really do flow. Think relaxing-hypnotic-calm. Sexy music. I’m in love.

 A band coming from Texas with an interesting flavour of music. No it’s not country music, not at all. No vocals, just music. Chill-out electric-guitar riffs with slow drumming to go along, and lots of other instruments/noises too! Ambient…eerie…ghastly…whatever you wanna call it. I’ve only heard the latest album ‘All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone’, which is their 6th, but they sound promising! A nice blend of mellow alternative music.

I thought I’d start putting up more than just artiste reviews on my site, so here goes!

Heard some cool tracks today, on the radio and on the net.

Just Jack’s "Starz in Their Eyes" - An interesting indie disco track. Nice chill-out music. Watch out for the RnB remixes, they are pretty good too!

MIA’s "Boyz" & "Bird Flu" - She may be pro-LTTE but her music rocks! Love how she fuses dancehall and Tamil music. These tracks are previews to her 2nd album, coming soon.

Natasha Bedingfield’s "I Wanna Have Your Babies" - Yep, some poppy stuff! A catchy tune with a weird name!! The music has a slight alternative flavour, probably why I like it.

Following a fairly unexceptional geeky art and music-filled, rejection-driven high school experience, I went off to the University of Michigan to study classical voice. Whereas high school was not what you might call a real social Mecca for me, I had been told that college would be different. It was true — once there, I was finally able to find people with similar interests — namely loud music, drug use, and general self-destruction.

That’s Terra Naomi herself for you. Smooth powerful vocals to go along with a piano, acoustic guitar or a whole band - whatever she’s in the mood for. The moving, meaningful lyrics only add to it. Alternative indie at it’s best! She sounds like a cross between Ani DiFranco and Sarah McLachlan, but don’t get me wrong - she does have her own unique blend of music.

She’s got some nice tracks, such as "Up Here", "Jenny", "Say It’s Possible" and "The Vicodin Song", which are all on her CD titled "Virtually".

She blogs on her website and she did a summer tour on YouTube! Yes, completely and only on YouTube. She rocks.

A Danish percussion duo composed of Uffe Savery and Morten Friis, initially classically oriented, were discovered by a label executive working on classical music back in 1999. After they signed on, they teamed up with a trance producer for an experimental project by the name of Safri Duo. And before they knew it, in 2000, their first single was burning up the dance floors everywhere, a track mixing both tribal sound and modern electronica, the tremendously popular "Played-a-live (The Bongo Song)."

The mix between the then fashionable tribal drums over trance proved to be a success, and it ended the year as one of the best selling singles in Europe in 2000.

They generally go for upbeat numbers but you can expect an occasional ’slower’ track amidst the club hits they churn out. Later on, they started featuring vocalists such as Clark Anderson on their singles as well. Safri Duo have albums such as "Episode II" and "3.0" to their name, which have hit singles like "Baya Baya" and "Laarbasses". They really do know how to build up the tempo. Time for some mind-blowing percussions. Lets dance!

It’s a single off their new album. You can probably recognise their ’sound’ but what’s cool about this track is the music. It plays to a very different rhythm you probably wouldn’t have heard before. A roll-along beat with sing-along lyrics! Nice.

This intense emotionally driven band is the brainchild of 19 year old Nick Thomas, a native from South Dakota, who happens to be a skilled guitarist, pianist and bassist! What began as an acoustic project has since evolved into the amazing full band line up jamming at venues all across the US and Europe.

His songs stem from emotion and transform late youth angst into brutally honest anthems… with acoustic guitar in hand, he is speaking for a new generation through his art.

Check out their albums “Sunsets & Car Crashes” (produced by Nick himself) and the newer full band Spill album, “One Fell Swoop”. Most of the tracks are acoustic numbers (the first albums is almost completely acoustic). I shant name the good tracks because I pretty much like all of them!

The lyrics maybe on cliché themes but they’ll surely move you. His lyrics flow out through his powerful vocals amidst the energetic acoustic rhythms. They will truly blow your mind.